The  Problem  of  the  Hour:  Will  the  Colored 
■1 

Race  Save  Itself  from  Ruin? 


•  TfCiV,'  •  .<  • 
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AN  ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  TRUSTEES,  FACULTY  AND  STUDENTS 
OF  THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  COLLEGE  OF  AGRICULTURE 
AND  THE  MECHANIC  ARTS,  AT  GREENSBORO, 


MAY,  1899  V* 


r-  ■** 


By  JULIAN  S.  CARR 


1899: 

The  Seeman  Printer v, 

DURHAM,  N.  C. 


mvmm 

A 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  TpE  HOO^: 


WILL  THE  COLORED  RACE  SAVE 
ITSELF  FROM  RUIN  ? 


AN  ADDRESS 


delivered  before  the  trustees,  faculty  and  students 

OF  THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  COLLEGE  OF  AGRICULTURE 
AND  THE  MECHANIC  ARTS,  AT  GREENSBORO, 

MAY,  1899, 

By  JULIAN  S.  CARR. 


1899: 

The  Seeman  Printery, 

DURHAM,  N.  C. 


Members  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  Faculty 
and  Students  of  the  North  Carolina  College 
of  Agriculture  and  the  Mechanic  Arts  for 
the  Colored  Race : 

Since  your  last  .commencement,  the  statesman  to 
whom  the  United  States  owes  its  Colleges  of  Agricul¬ 
ture  and  the  Mechanic  Arts  has  passed  away,  dying 
at  his  post,  in  extreme  old  age. 

It  is  now  nearly  sixty  years  since  the  beginning  of 
the  modern  revolution  in  mental  activities  and  material 
progress,  which  occupied  the  score  of  years  between 
1840  and  i860.  Agriculture  upon  well  ordered  system, 
and  the  extension  of  steam  transportation  from  its 
ten  years  experiment  upon  the  land  to  the  dominion 
of  the  sea,  were  at  its  foundation,  in  constantly 
expanding  development. 

One  by  one,  iron-working,  gas-making,  mining, 
dyeing,  bleaching,  and  the  textile  arts  were  modified, 
in  the  light  of  chemistry;  no  longer  a  dream,  but  a 
force.  The  electric  telegraph  became  familiar,  com¬ 
mercial  fertilizers  and  agricultural  machinery  magnified 
the  crops,  and  finally^  the  power  press,  and  the  fabri¬ 
cation  of  modern  ships  and  arms,  great  and  small,  and 
the  multiplication  of  new  methods  in  all  arts,  changed 
the  face  of  the  world. 

In  an  industrial  sense,  nations  saw  each  other  for 
the  first  time,  at  the  first  World’s  Fair  in  1851,  and 
straightway  they  stripped  for  the  race. 

Men  called  for  a  new  educative  system,  in  sympathy 
with  the  new  era;  nay,  it  was  demanded  as  the  natural 
flower  and  crown  of  man’s  new  rule  over  nature. 
The  modern  student  must  not  be  a  dreamer  among  the 
thoughts  of  the  dead — he  must  be  up  and  doing.  The 
need  of  the  hour  was  a  learning  that  should  educate 
the  hand  and  eye,  no  less  than  the  ear  and  brain. 

Responsive  to  this,  on  December  14th  1837,  Hon. 
Justin  S.  Morrill,  then  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  introduced  a  bill  to  establish  an 
industrial  college  in  each  State,  and  grant  for  its  main¬ 
tenance  20,000  acres  of  public  land,  for  each  member 
of  Congress, 


4 


It  was  adversely  reported,  but  passed  by  hard  effort 
over  the  opposing  report,  only  to  be  vetoed. 

Yet  he  persevered,  and  in  December  1861,  introduced 
an  amended  bill  which  increased  the  gift  to  30,000 
acres  for  each  district,  and  read,  in  its  own  language, 
“For  colleges  where  the  leading  object  shall  be,  with¬ 
out  excluding  other  scientific  and  classical  studies,  and 
including  military  tactics,  to  teach  such  branches  of 
learning  as  are  related  to  agriculture  and  the  mechanic 
arts,  in  order  to  promote  the  liberal  and  practical 
education  of  the  industrial  persuits  and  professions  of 
life.” 

This,  too,  met  an  adverse  report,  yet  nothing 
daunted,  he  pressed  the  scheme,  so  that  in  June  fol¬ 
lowing  it  was  passed,  and  approved  by  Mr.  Lincoln. 
After  nearly  thirty  years  he  found  that  their  useful¬ 
ness  was  limited  by  lack  of  means  for  the  extended 
and  costly  appliances  of  technical  education,  and  Mr. 
Morrill  became  the  leader,  now  in  the  Senate,  in 
passing  the  act  of  1890,  by  which  more  than  a  million 
of  dollars  is  annually  paid  from  the  Treasury  for 
instruction  in  certain  branches  in  these  institutions. 

Under  the  Acts,  there  are  now  sixty-six  colleges, 
having  over  $50,000,000  of  permanent  endowments, 
buildings  and  equipments,  with  $6,000,000  income, 
employing  over  2,000  professors  and  tutors,  and 
instructing  about  30,000  students. 

This  great  development  of  scientific  and  industrial 
education  will  always  be  a  living  memorial  to  Senator 
Morrill.  The  story  of  his  dauntless  perseverance 
should  be  recalled,  and  its  lesson  sink  deep  into  the 
hearts  of  those  blessed  by  his  efforts. 

North  Carolina,  like  many  other  States,  first  estab¬ 
lished  an  agricultural  department  at  her  University 
with  the  income  of  her  land  scrip,  and  subsequently 
founded  a  college  at  Raleigh,  for  her  white  population. 
Finally,  after  providing  temporarily  for  the  instruc¬ 
tion  of  the  colored  race  in  agriculture  and  the  mechanic 
arts  at  Shaw  University,  the  General  Assembly,  in 
1891,  came  up  to  the  full  measure  of  its  duty,  and 
organized  this  college,  March  9th  of  that  year. 

The  progressive  citizens  of  Greensboro  gave  twent)T- 
five  acres  of  land  as  a  site,  and  $8,000  for  buildings. 
In  1893,  an  appropriation  of  $10,000  was  made,  of 


5 


State  funds,  and  the  school  opened  in  the  autumn  of 
that  year,  although  it  was  not  fully  at  work  until 
January  thereafter. 

I  am  gratified  to  learn  that  you  have  thirteen  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  faculty,  who  represent  the  training  of 
some  of  the  best  institutions  of  technolog}"  in  the 
country,  and  that  you  have  108  students  on  your  roll, 
besides  having  last  year  more  than  fifty  teachers  in 
your  summer  school. 

You  have,  therefore,  fairly  entered  upon  collegiate 
life,  and  must  prove  an  important  factor  in  the  educa¬ 
tive  forces  of  North  Carolina. 

You  have  a  great  opportunity  before  you.  The 
influence  and  spirit  of  this  institution  upon  the  gener¬ 
ation  to  come  will  mean  much  to  the  whole  population 
of  the  State,  white  and  colored;  but  immensely  more, 
to  yourselves  directly. 

Here  are  facilities  to  acquire  the  key  to  the  two 
great  needs  of  your  race,  money  and  education.  They 
are  the  levers  that  move  the  world.  No  ignorant  race 
can  rise  or  succeed  in  any  high  sense,  nor  can  its 
members  govern  themselves  or  others. 

“With  all  thy  getting,  get  understanding,”  says 
the  Book  of  Books.  If  you  expect  your  people  to 
occupy  high  ground,  they  must  learn  how  to  do  things. 
What  is  the  beginning  of  true  knowledge ?  Finding' 
how  to  do  something  well.  The  negro  who  teaches 
his  boy  how  to  raise  a  crop,  or  build  a  house,  or  keep 
his  transactions  in  a  ledger,  has  given  him  more  than 
if  he  had  procured  him  a  palace  or  a  seat  in  Congress. 
He  has  taught  him  how  to  do. 

Education  is  worthless  if  men  do  not  learn  how  to  do 
things.  The  man  who  goes  to  school  is  a  failure  if  he 
has  only  absorbed  books,  and  has  not  learned  how  to 
master  a  task,  how  to  attach  himself  to  the  world,  and 
work  out  his  share  in  human  endeavor. 

Too  many  boys  get  the  wrong  idea  of  the  aim  of 
education.  They  look  about  and  make  this  mental 
comment:  “Most  of  the  educated  men  I  know  are 
lawyers,  teachers,  doctors  or  preachers.  They  do  no 
manual  labor.  They  are  free  from  hard  work,  and  I 
want  to  be  educated  that  I  may  escape  hard  work  too, 
like  them.”  Fie  who  goes  to  school  only  to  seek  an 
easy  time  soon  makes  shipwreck  of  life. 


— 0— 

There  is  no  royal  road  to  learning.  He  who  becomes 
a  scholar  must  burn  the  midnight  oil.  The  lawyer  at 
the  bar,  the  minister  in  his  pulpit,  who  moves  with  his 
eloquence,  has  had  to  toil  when  others  were  asleep. 

Happily  for  your  race,  the  early  notion  that  educa¬ 
tion  was  the  road  that  lead  to  easy  work,  and  no 
manual  labor,  is  passing  away.  This  institution, 
which  can  do  more  for  the  negroes  of  North  Carolina 
than  any  other  is  the  recognition,  the  declaration  by 
the  country  that  manual  labor  is  honorable,  and  that 
the  truly  educated  man  must  train  his  hand  as  well  as 
his  head. 

Education  of  the  right  sort  is  the  best,  and  safest 
foundation  for  succcess  in  life.  It  is  in  the  reach  of 
every  boy,  no  matter  how  poor,  if  he  has  enough  thirst 
for  it  to  study  at  night  by  the  lightwood  fire. 

Next  to  education,  the  negro  needs  money  or  its 
representative.  The  man  who  owns  his  home  has  a 
stock  in  the  country  that  nothing  else  gives.  He  is  a 
free-liolder,  a  tax-payer,  and  if  he  continues  to  amass 
property,  however  little,  he  becomes  a  lender  of  money 
to  others.  A  home  of  one’s  own  gives  steadiness  to 
life  and  character.  In  order  to  add  to  its  comforts 
and  attractions,  habits  of  economy  and  thrift  are 
found,  and  once  begun,  the  way  to  independence,  if 
slow,  is  steady  and  sure. 

“East  year,”  said  a  colored  divine,  “the  white 
people  invested  one  million  dollars  in  cotton  factories; 
while  the  colored  people  spent  ten  thousand  dollars  in 
excursions.”  Need  I  dwell  upon  the  moral?  Self- 
denial  to-day  is  the  parent  of  advancement  to-morrow. 

I  have  addressed  you  thus  far,  without  regard  to  the 
especial  circumstances  which  surround  you  as  negroes. 
But  I  am  not  unaware  of  the  delicate  situation  of  the 
present,  or  unmindful  of  the  responsibility  attached 
to  these  utterances. 

Many  of  your  race  have  felt  uncertainties  of  the 
future  pressing  upon  them,  and  that  from  whatever 
cause,  the}7  were  about  to  enter  upon  a  period  of 
humiliation  and  loss,  possibly  of  danger  to  their  rights 
and  privileges.  Some,  who  recognize  the  friendship 
of  which  I  have  endeavored  to  give  practical  proof, 
and  which  I  avow  freely  again  to-day,  have  written  to 
me  for  counsel.  Eet  me,  then,  speak  to  you  as  repre- 


—7— 


sentatives  of  the  best  element  of  the  negro  race  in  the 
South,  which  I  believe  you  to  be. 

Words  are  vain,  unless  they  be  spoken  in  candor, 
in  soberness  and  truth.  I  will  speak  plainly,  and  of 
facts,  every  one  of  which  has  ample  warrant  in  history. 

Your  ancestors  came  here,  from  Africa,  through  no 
will  of  their  own,  or  of  our  forefathers,  the  colonists, 
but  were  brought  here  by  foreign  traders  who  pur¬ 
chased  them  in  their  own  land  from  chiefs  of  their 
own  color,  as  the  prey  of  the  strongest.  In  that  age, 
slavery  was  not  confined  to  colored  men,  but  large 
numbers  of  white  men  were  sent  to  the  plantations  in 
America  to  labor,  not  only  for  criminal,  but  for  polit¬ 
ical  offenses.  Indeed  a  mechanic  or  laborer  out  of 
work,  and  in  a  strange  neighborhood  might  be  sold  in 
England  for  a  term  of  years,  and  sometimes  for  life. 
And  captives  in  war  were  subject  to  slavery,  as  for 
example,  Capt.  John  Smith,  the  great  leader  at  James¬ 
town,  who  had  been  a  slave  in  Russia. 

The  royal  power  and  the  courtiers  were  chiefly  respon¬ 
sible  for  the  slave  trade.  Queen  Anne,  in  a  letter  to  the 
colonial  governors  in  1702,  directed  that  her  subjects 
“take  especial  care  that  God  Almighty  be  devoutly 
and  duly  served,”'  and  that  the  Royal  African  Company 
of  England  “take  especial  care  that  the  said  prov¬ 
inces  may  have  a  constant  supply  of  merchantable 
negroes  at  moderate  rates.” 

And  the  same  queen  afterwards  entered  into  the 
most  gigantic  speculation  in  slaves  that  the  modern 
world  had  ever  known,  when  she  paid  Philip  V  of 
Spain  an  enormous  bonus  for  the  right  to  furnish  the 
Spanish  West  Indies  with  negroes  from  Africa,  the 
queen  herself  receiving  one-fourtli  of  the  profits. 
Under  this  scheme,  700,000  were  brought  to  America, 
in  the  forty  years  following. 

The  trade  finally  fell  into  the  hands  of  New  England 
skippers  and  owners,  to  supply  the  colonies,  and  at 
the  date  of  the  Revolution,  every  one  of  the  original 
thirteen,  without  exception,  maintained  slavery.  Vir¬ 
ginia  had  abolished  the  trade  in  1769,  but  her  laws 
were  nullified  by  the  British,  George  III  and  Parlia¬ 
ment  insisting  upon  keeping  up  the  profitable  traffic. 

When  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was 
adopted,  the  slave  trade  was  retained  as  lawful  for 


— 8— 


twenty  years,  by  the  vote  of  New  England  which  had 
the  trade  in  rum  and  negroes,  and  that  of  the  rice 
planters  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  who  believed 
white  labor  could  not  be  used  for  that  culture. 

Gradually  the  States  whose  climatic  and  industrial 
conditions  did  not  accord  with  slavery,  abolished  the 
institution,  and  by  degrees  emancipation  progressed 
southward,  aided  in  the  North  by  the  limited  number 
of  slaves,  and  the  facility  for  selling  them  to  Southern 
neighbors,  in  anticipation  of  these  enactments. 

The  Legislature  of  Virginia  had  been  on  the  verge 
of  abolishing  slavery,  but  the  difficulties  that  would 
follow,  the  question  of  the  two  races,  a  matter  wholly 
untried  with  so  large  a  population  of  the  colored  race, 
stared  her  statesmen  in  the  face. 

They  perceived  the  ultimate  good,  but  saw  the 
dangers,  some  of  which  are  stern  realities  now.  Of 
these  Patrick  Henry,  the  apostle  of  freedom,  opposed 
slavery  as  a  permanent  institution,  but  showed  the 
risk  of  the  enormous  social  change.  Jefferson  approved 
Monroe’s  efforts  for  colonization,  commemorated  in  the 
name  of  the  capital  of  Liberia,  but  with  the  wisdom 
of  all  his  life,  had  no  faith  in  its  possible  success. 
Chief  Justice  Marshall  affirmed  that  in  such  a  popula¬ 
tion,  the  removal  of  the  legal  status  of  the  negro  as  a 
slave  would  not,  of  itself,  relieve  him  or  his  white 
neighbor  from  conditions  irksome  and  hurtful  to  both. 

Even  the  great  statesman,  who  twice  prevented  the 
lighting  of  the  torch  of  war  by  his  compromise 
measures,  Henry  Clay,  was  wont  to  say  that  sudden 
and  general  emancipation  would  bring  more  evil  to 
white  and  black,  than  the  continuance  of  slaverv. 

This  is  not  the  time  and  place  to  discuss  the  causes 
of  the  war  for  Southern  Independence,  growing  out 
of  the  divergence  of  civilizations,  and  sectional  interests 
in  tariffs,  navigation  laws,  rights  in  slave  property, 
and  the  like,  with  legislation  believed  to  be  favoritism 
for  one  section,  and  oppression  for  the  other. 

The  earth  rocked  under  the  armed  clash  of  three 
millions  of  troops  against  seven  hundred  thousand,  of 
great  navies  against  a  few  hastily  equipped  vessels,  of 
three  billions  of  treasure  against  a  scanty  purse  chiefly 
filled  with  Confederate  paper,  and  Appomattox  might 
have  been  foreseen  from  the  beginning.  As  a  result 


— 9— 


the  negro  was  made  free,  and  clothed  with  the  polit¬ 
ical  rights  of  the  white  man. 

Of  the  conditions  that  prevailed  during  reconstruc¬ 
tion  I  will  not  now  speak.  They  are  written  in  the 
history  of  the  Confederacy,  and  some  of  the  pages  are 
red  with  the  blood  of  good  men. 

Of  the  controlling  element  at  that  period  when  so 
large  a  portion  of  white  men  .in  the  South  were  dis- 
frachised,  Booker  T.  Washington,  the  president  of 
the  most  influential  institution  for  the  education  of 
the  colored  race,  and  known  to  you  as  now,  perhaps, 
the  most  distinguished  of  his  people  in  America,  not 
long  since  declared  in  Boston  : 

“Those  of  the  white  race,  from  the  North,  who  got 
political  control  of  the  South  in  the  beginning  of  our 
freedom  were  not  men  of  such  unselfish  natures  as  to 
lead  them  to  do  something  that  would  permanently 
help  the  negro,  rather  than  yield  to  temptation  to  use 
him  to  lift  themselves  into  political  power.  This  mis¬ 
take  made  the  negro  and  the  Southern  white  man 
political  enemies. 

It  w7as  unfortunate  that  the  negro  got  the  idea  that 
every  white  man  of  the  South  was  opposed  by  nature 
to  his  advancement,  and  that  he  could  only  find  a  friend 
in  the  white  man  who  was  removed  from  him  by 
thousands  of  miles.” 

$ 

I  am  here  to  affirm  that  the  best  friend  the  negro 
has  ever  possessed,  and  the  best  friend  he  has  to-day, 
in  the  white  man  of  the  South,  with  all  his  faults  and 
his  virtues. 

The  history  of  the  family  slaves  during  the  four 
years  of  bloody  combat,  must  forever  remain  one  of 
the  most  honorable  in  human  annals.  The  head  of 
the  household,  and  often  all  of  his  sons  were  in  the 
distant  army;  the  wife,  perhaps  the  newly  made  widow, 
and  her  little  ones,  were  alone  upon  the  plantation;  in 
some  cases,  even  within  the  lines  of  the  invading 
army,  and  yet  the  daily  routine  of  making  the  crops 
went  on.  Our  Southern  women  were  not  only  safe  in 
the  keeping  of  the  black  race,  but  they  were  actually 
guarded  and  protected  by  them.  There  was  indeed  a 
sense  of  security  that  we  do  not  feel  in  these  times. 

The  Southern  slave  was  a  friend  who  received  and 
merited  the  confidence  and  respect  of  the  whole  house- 


—10 


hold.  Affection  between  master  and  servant  and 
devotion  to  the  comfort  and  happiness,  the  one  of  the 
other,  not  only  survived  the  rude  shock  of  war,  but 
there  are  instances  not  a  few,  of  loyalty  to  the  ancient 
regard,  even  to  the  present  day.  The  recollection  of 
the  fidelity  of  the  negro  in  those  dark  hours,  will  be 
green  in  the  memory  of  every  Southern  man. 

There  were  bad  men.  of  both  races  in  the  era  of 
slavery.  There  were  cruelty  and  wickedness,  no 
doubt,  as  exists  everywhere  upon  the  earth,  but  tell 
me  if  the  record  of  order,  self-restraint  and  peaceful 
industry  shown  by  the  black  race  throughout  that 
struggle,  do  not  speak  in  eloquent  tones  of  the  nature 
of  the  life  that  had  transformed  him  into  such  a  being 
from  the  African  savage  as  he  once  was,  and  still  is, 
in  the  Dark  Continent. 

Their  training  was  largely  under  the  influence  of  the 
noblest  women  that  ever  lived. 

Provision  was  made  for  religious  instruction,  and  in 
1841,  the  number  attached  to  the  various  churches 
was  estimated  at  two  millions.  Sunday  schools  were 
maintained  not  only  in  the  towns,  and  at  the  country 
churches,  but  also  on  large  plantations,  with  the 
women  of  the  household  as  teachers. 

You  have  read  of  the  marvelous  career  of  Stonewall 
Jackson  in  defence  of  the  Confederate  cause,  and 
have  perhaps  considered  him  your  enemy.  Not  so. 
Did  you  ever  hear  of  his  colored  Sunday  school  ?  I11 

Mrs.  Jackson’s  memoirs  of  him,  we  read  that  after  the 
great  day  at  Manassas  and  retirement  to  his  tent,  his 
heart  turned  to  home,  and  the  first  letter  after  the 
victorious  battle,  to  his  faithful  pastor,  at  Lexington, 
was  to  send  a  check  as  his  contribution  to  maintain 
the  colored  Sunday  school,  without  one  word  of  the 
death  struggle,  and  the  rout  of  the  P'ederal  army. 

Gen.  Armstrong  of  the  United  States  forces,  so  long 
the  Superintendent  at  the  Institute  at  Hampton,  was 
constrained,  as  he  noted  the  negro  and  the  Indian  at 
work  side  by  side,  to  declare  that  “the  civilization  by 
slavery  was  the  greatest  missionary  enterprise  of  the 
century.  ’  ’ 

The  removal  of  your  people  by  colonization  in  Africa 
or  anywhere  else  has  been  much  talked  of,  but  was 
seen  by  the  South  long  since,  to  be  an  impossible 


— 11- 

dream.  The  ne^ro  is  among  us  to  stay,  unless  lie 
shall  bring  about  his  own  dissolution. 

If  any  one  conceive  the  scheme  of  colonization  to 
be  possible,  let  him  consider  what  efforts  and  treasure, 
and  fleets  of  transports  were  required  to  carry  the 
small  American  army  to  Cuba  and  to  Porto  Rico,  or  to 
move  30,000  men  to  the  Philippines. 

To  carry  eight  millions  of  people  to  Africa  would 
require,  if  a  ship  taking  five  hundred  passengers,  men, 
women  and  children,  should  leave  one  of  our  ports 
every  day  in  the  year,  Sundays  included,  no  less  than 
some  forty-four  years  in  a  grand  procession,  one  day 
after  the  another,  across  the  Atlantic.  During  this 
lifetime  of  a  generation  and  more,  vast  additional 
numbers  would  be  born,  for  transportation  in  turn. 
Even  that  would  be  but  the  first  step.  To  procure 
their  homes,  achieve  self-support,  and  establish  a  stable 
government,  would  be  yet  to  come. 

No  such  delusion  ever  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
thoughtful  white  man  in  the  South  whom  I  have 
insisted  was  the  negro’s  best  friend.  He  saw  that  you 
and  your  children  must  live  in  this  land  with  him  and 
his  children.  He  saw  that  for  the  common  good,  he 
must  “take  up  the  white  man’s  burden,”  a  generation 
before  Kipling  uttered  the  phrase. 

With  his  country  devastated,  his  means  plundered 
and  squandered  under  legal  forms,  his  brethren  slain, 
deprived  even  of  his  vote  for  years,  and  long  without 
the  right  to  hold  office,  the  Southern  wtiite  man  has 
preserved  his  kind  feeling  for  the  negro,  even  when  the 
colored  vote  was  cast  solidly  against  his  best  interests. 

The  negro  had  joined  the  stranger  against  his  old 
friends.  He  had  removed  himself  in  all  church  organ¬ 
izations.  But  he  was  powerless  to  educate  his  children 
without  help.  Tell  me,  candidly  speaking,  is  it  not  a 
wonderful  thing  that  the  white  man  should  have  taxed 
himself  to  give  the  blessings  of  education  to  the  child 
of  the  black  man  ? 

The  United  States  Bureau  of  Education  shows  that 
since  the  war,  the  Southern  States  have  expended 
$514,000,000  for  common  schools,  and  the  negroes 
have  received  more  than  $100,000,000  of  the  amount. 
It  is  paid  in  North  Carolina,  per  capita  the  same, 
white  and  black,  although  the  returns  show  95  per 
cent,  of  the  tax  paid  by  the  white  man. 


-12- 

Shallow  thinkers  ask  why  we  do  not  do  more  for 
the  colored  child,  and  point  to  the  large  sums  that 
Massachusetts  and  other  States  give  for  popular  edu¬ 
cation.  It  is  easier  for  the  rich  to  give  than  the  poor, 
yet  the  dollar  of  taxable  wealth  in  our  State  pays 
more  for  this  purpose  than  the  dollar  in  Massachu¬ 
setts. 

And  the  task  is  more  difficult,  as  we  have  more  area, 
and  a  school  population  much  scattered,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  fact  that  two-fifths  of  the  inhabitants  pay 
nothing  practically. 

There  is  another  element  in  the  comparison,  which 
illustrates  the  weight  the  white  man  lifts,  to  help  the 
negro. 

Dr.  Curry,  manager  of  the  Peabody  Fund  points  out 
this  truth  : 

“It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  are  fewer 
tax-payers  in  the  South,  in  proportion  to  population, 
and  the  school  population  especially,  than  any  other 
part  of  the  United  States.  The  South  Central  States 
have  only  66  adult  males  to  ioo  children,  while  in  the 
Western  States,  there  are  157  adults.  In  South  Car¬ 
olina  there  are  37  out  of  100  of  school  age,  in  Montana 
but  18.  And  of  the  South,  many  adult  males  are 
negroes,  with  a  minimum  of  property.  The  number 
of  male  adults  to  100  children  in  New  Hampshire, 
Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  is  double  what  it  is  in 
North  Carolina,  and  the  States  south  of  it.” 

To  this  may  be  added  the  excess  in  the  number  of 
women,  on  account  of  the  ravages  of  war  in  our  sec¬ 
tion. 

Yet  the  burden  of  the  additional  number  of  children 
but  hastens  the  day  when  they  will  rebuild  the  pros¬ 
perity  once  their  fathers’. 

Now  who  directed  the  policy  of  the  State,  and  who 
has  gradually  increased  the  blessings  you  enjoy? 
Those  whom  you  have  dreaded  as  the  White  Man’s 
Party.  When,  twenty-three  years  ago,  the  corruption 
of  ‘  ‘carpet-bag’  ’  government  was  ended  by  the  election 
of  Zebulon  B.  Vance  to  the  governorship  of  the  State, 
his  first  message  rang  with  this  clear  note  of  the 
statesmen: 

“I  regard  it  as  unmistakeable  policy  to  imbue  these 
black  people  with  a  thorough  North  Carolina  feeling, 


—13— 

and  make  them  cease  to  look  abroad  for  the  aids  to 
their  progress  and  civilization,  and  the  protection  of 
their  rights,  as  thev  have  been  taught  to  do,  and  teach 
them  to  look  to  their  own  State  instead;  to  teach  them 
that  their  welfare  is  indissolubly  linked  with  ours.  ” 

Did  the  men,  who  with  Vance,  took  charge  of  the 
State  government  do  anything  to  prove  their  sense  of 
the  common  welfare  of  the  race?  They  steadily 
increased  the  fund  for  your  schools,  restored  that 
which  had  been  squandered  for  other  purposes  than 
the  education  of  your  children,  and  established  Normal 
Schools  to  provide  you  with  teachers,  which  have  been 
sustained  to  the  present  time.  They  freely  gave 
charters  and  privileges,  and  in  some  cases  land,  to 
institutions  for  your  higher  instruction.  They  founded 
the  first  insane  asylum  ever  built  for  the  colored  race, 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  and  have  so  enlarged  and 
equipped  and  beautified  it,  that  it  is  one  of  the  most 
admirable  institutions  in  the  country. 

They  provided  and  have  twice  enlarged  the  colored 
department  of  the  deaf,  dumb,  and  blind,  a  visit  to 
which  will  so  impress  you  as  never  to  be  forgotten. 
They  gave  an  annual  appropriation  to  the  only  insti¬ 
tution  for  colored  orphans  in  the  State,  and  have 
since  doubled  that,  so  that  it  is  kept  up  almost  wholly 
by  taxation  of  the  whites  They  made  a  continuing 
annual  appropriation  for  your  State  Fair;  the  only  one 
within  my  knowledge  regularly  maintained  by  your 
race,  in  the  Union.  This  is  held  on  the  grounds  and 
in  the  buildings  of  the  white  State  Agricultural  Soci¬ 
ety,  and  all  its  privileges  are  given  freely,  without 
charge,  although  that  Society  is  struggling  under  a 
bonded  debt  of  years.  Can  you  find  all  this  anywhere 
else  ?  Is  my  proposition  true,  or  not,  that  the  South¬ 
ern  man  is  your  best  friend  ? 

•  I  have  said  that  I  would  speak  plainly,  for  the 
interest  of  all.  And  I  now  declare  further,  that  the 
Southern  people  as  a  whole,  and  the  white  men  of 
North  Carolina  will  never  again  submit  to  the  govern¬ 
ment  of  ignorance,  in  a  great  blind  unwitting  mass, 
led  by  the  artful  and  greedy,  for  their  own  selfish 
ends.  This  determination  is  not  born  of  hatred  to 
the  negro,  but  is  based  upon  a  regard  for  the  true 
welfare  of  both  races. 


—14 


Those  who  lived  in  the  South  when  the  negro  was 
given  the  ballot  knew  that  neither  the  white  man  nor 
the  negro  is  to  blame  for  the  political  estrangement 
that  made  the  color  line  in  politics.  The  same  day 
that  the  negro  was  made  a  voter,  every  Southern  man 
who  had  held  office  was  disfranchised.  It  needs  not 
that  we  should  open  old  sores,  by  asking  why  the  two 
measures  came  together.  We  are  dealing  with  conditions 
and  facts.  The  negro  obtained  the  ballot  when  the 
master  could  not  vote. 

The  negro  was  taken  first  to  the  polls,  when  the 
Federal  soldier  typified  to  him  his  political  savior.  It 
would  have  been  unnatural,  with  that  feeling  toward 
the  party  which  had  conferred  the  ballot,  for  him  to 
have  done  otherwise  than  vote  as  he  did,  en  masse  for 
the  Republican  ticket.  So,  too,  it  would  have  been 
unnatural,  for  white  men  of  the  South,  understanding 
how  easily  corrupt  men  would  control  the  negro,  and 
his  ability  to  use  the  ballot  with  intelligence  and  judg¬ 
ment,  to  have  advocated  the  bestowal  of  the  suffrage 
upon  those  not  qualified  to  use  it. 

I  may  be  wrong — it  may  not  be  wise  to  state  it — 
there  may  be  exceptions  that  I  have  not  seen — but  I 
feel  impressed  to  say  that  in  my  observation,  the 
intelligent  and  thrifty  negro  has  not  only  had  little  or  no 
influence  in  his  party  for  securing  better  government, 
but  he  has,  in  the  main,  been  dominated  by  the  igno¬ 
rant  of  his  race  in  political  affairs. 

If  true,  that  is  a  proposition  that  ought  to  give  pause 
to  every  educated  and  industrious  negro  in  the  State. 
I  make  the  statement,  not  by  way  of  criticism,  but  as 
a  fact,  that  the  teachers  and  students  of  the  negro 
schools  ought  to  consider.  Everywhere  in  the  world, 
except  among  the  negroes,  intelligence  and  virtue 
dominate  in  politics.  Unfortunately,  the  ignorant, 
who  are  easily  deceived,  control  the  political  action  of 
many  of  the  more  intelligent,  who  are  better  qualified 
to  lead  the  race. 

Eet  me  give  an  illustration:  In  a  recent  campaign, 
an  educated  and  thrifty  negro,  who  had  accumulated 
some  property,  became  convinced  that  the  policy  of  a 
certain  party  was  not  best  for  him  or  his  race.  He 
decided  that  certain  nominees  were  unfit  to  hold  office, 
and  he  wrote  an  article  for  the  papers  giving  the  rea¬ 
sons  why  he  had  changed  his  politics. 


—15— 

When  the  election  was  near  at  hand,  this  man  (he 
was  a  teacher)  was  told  by  most  of  the  patrons  of  the 
school,  that  if  he  changed  his  politics  or  scratched  his 
ticket,  they  would  not  let  him  teach  their  children. 
What  did  he  do?  He  voted  as  he  had  been  doing  all 
the  time. 

A  gentleman  with  whom  he  talked  repeated  his 
reasons  thus:  “My  race  is  uneducated,  and  therefore 
very  easily  prejudiced.  They  think  that  if  I  change 
my  vote,  I  become  an  enemy  of  the  people  to  whom  I 
belong.  In  their  partisan  zeal,  they  would  ostracize 
me,  take  away  my  opportunity  for  usefulness  and 
leave  me  without  influence  with  my  race.  If  I  voted 
my  convictions,  it  would  count  only  one  vote,  and 
make  me  powerless  to  help  the  children  who  need  my 
help.  If  I  vote  with  the  rest  of  my  race,  I  can  help 
enlighten  the  children.  The  hope  of  the  negro  race 
lies  in  the  future.  I  think  it  is  my  duty  to  let  my 
vote  be  controlled,  rather  than  be  cut  off  from  the  good 
I  can  do  to  the  children,  in  whose  education  I  am 
interested  beyond  anything.” 

I  do  not  quote  this  to  condemn,  or  to  commend  him, 

.  but  to  illustrate  the  truth  that  the  intelligence  and 
virtue  of  the  negro  race  does  not  control  it,  and  that 
instead  of  being  leaders  in  public  matters,  the  teachers 
and  preachers  are  followers,  and  that  too  of  the  ignor¬ 
ant,  with  all  their  prejudices. 

Because  of  this,  among  other  things,  the  whole 
world  now  admits  that  it  was  a  mistake  to  have  given 
universal  suffrage  to  the  negroes,  cs  they  emerged 
from  slavery  thirty  years  ago.  It  was  a  mistake  that 
the  negro  now  recognizes,  and  one  that  injured  him, 
as  it  damaged  others. 

He  was  told  to  make  bricks  without  straw.  He 
could  not  do  it,  and  after  thirty  3^ears’  use  of  the 
ballot,  it  is  not  open  to  question,  that  suffrage  ought 
not  to  have  been  granted  at  once,  but  should  have 
been  made  an  honor  and  a  privilege,  to  be  obtained 
only  b}^  those  who  fitted  themselves  to  exercise  it. 

In  a  letter  written  in  1863,  Mr.  Tineoln  avowed 
himself  to  be  of  the  belief  of  the  early  statesmen  of  the 
South  to  whom  I  have  referred,  for  he  said  that 
“gradual  emancipation  can  be  made  better  than  im¬ 
mediate.” 


16— 


The  failure  of  the  educated  negroes  to  make  their 
influence  felt  for  good  in  the  political  world,  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  whatever  opposition  exists  to  further  sacri¬ 
fice  by  the  white  man  for  their  enlightenment. 

He  is  a  false  friend  and  a  time-server  who  does  not 
frankly  declare  the  truth.  Of  whatever  party  or 
politics  you  choose  to  be,  every  man  who  is  honest  and 
true  should  have  the  liberty  to  vote  unmolested,  unin¬ 
timidated,  and  without  prejudice  for  the  man  of  his 
choice;  for  men  who  are  themselves  honest  and  true; 
whose  interests  are  with  the  people,  and  who  will 
safely  guard  and  protect  all  that  is  committed  to  their 
charge. 

What  have  you  accomplished  with  the  funds  fur¬ 
nished  your  race  by  taxation  in  the  South?  Ten  years 
ago,  according  to  the  United  States  reports,  the  South 
had  a  population  of  the  average  .school  age  (6  to  14 
years),  of  white  children  (using  round  numbers)  of 
3,489,000;  of  colored,  1,692,000.  Of  these  North 
Carolina  had  239,150  white,  and  142,600  colored,  or 
63  per  cent,  white  to  37  per  cent,  colored.  The  en¬ 
rollment  in  school  was  the  same  average,  and  it  is 
noticeable  that  of  the  Southern  States,  North  Carolina 
had  the  largest  ratio  of  enrollment  to  the  number 
enumerated. 

I  will  not  repeat  the  figures  of  the  Bureau  of  Educa¬ 
tion  for  successive  years,  but  observe  that  whereas 
oirer  85  per  cent,  of  the  colored  race  of  10  years  and 
upward  could  not  read  and  write  in  1870,  it  was 
reduced  to  75  per  cent,  in  1880,  and  by  1890,  had 
fallen  to  60  per  cent.  To-day,  in  some  of  the  Southern 
States,  it  is  less  than  50  per  cent.  In  1896-’ 97,  the 
latest  published  returns  of  the  United  States,  the 
average  attendance  per  cent,  of  the  white  enrollment 
was  67.58,  and  of  the  colored  61.95.  Institutions  for 
higher  education  of  the  negroes,  numbered  160  in  the 
Southern  States,  and  9  in  the  Northern,  being  a  total 
of  169.  These  had  45,402  students,  an  increase  of 
5,275  over  the  preceding  year. 

Industrial  training,  the  salt  of  the  whole,  was  given 
to  13,581.  They  were  provided  with  libraries  of 
224,794  volumes,  valued  at  $203,731.  The  cost  of 
grounds,  buildings,  apparatus,  etc.,  had  reached 
$7)7i4>958,  the  benefactions  for  the  year  being  $303 ,- 


17— 


ooo  and  the  aggregate  income  $i  ,045,278  for  the  same 
time. 

The  teachers  in  the  colored  public  schools  numbered 
27,435,  and  in  higher  schools  1,795.  They  doubtless 
now  exceed  30,000. 

A  most  important  fact  is,  that  in  1865  the  negro 
owned  practically  nothing,  but  has  since  accumulated 
$226,000,000.  That  is  not  more  than  $20,000,000 
short  of  the  whole  taxable  property  of  North  Carolina. 

Recorder  Cheatham,  of  the  National  Capital,  (form¬ 
erly  of  North  Carolina),  in  a  recent  emancipation 
address,  speaks  as  follows: 

“Where,  in  the  same  short  period  of  freedom,  has 
any  race  undertaken  life’s  stormy  path,  without  a 
penny  111  their  pockets,  without  food  or  raiment,  and 
has  built  200  colleges,  educated  25,000  teachers,  who 
have  passed  examinations  at  the  hands  of  those  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  antagonistic  to  their  advancement;  and 
has  educated  5,000  ministers  of  the  gospel,  20,000 
Sunday  school  teachers,  and  has  500,000  Sunday 
school  scholars,  in  the  short  period  of  25  years.  *  * 

“Is  it  not  just  that  I  should  state  here  that  Northern 
help  was  great  in  the  sympathy  and  aid  to  education 
given  us,  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Southern 
men  in  every  Southern  community  by  sympathy  and 
accommodation  in  store  and  bank  credits,  have  ex¬ 
tended  the  race  a  service  which  they  could  not  other¬ 
wise  obtain,  and  has  enabled  it  to  make  the  showing 
of  which  we  are  justly  proud.  No  man  or  race  can 
stand  alone,  and  in  the  providence  of  God,  we  have 
found  friends  in  all  sections  of  the  country,  who  have 
succored  us  in  times  of  trouble.” 

These  are  words  of  natural  exultation.  But  there 
is  reason  to  believe  that  this  development  has  been 
one-sided;  of  the  mental,  much  of  it,  without  the 
moral;  of  the  head  and  not  the  heart. 

There  is  a  canker  at  the  core  of  this  civilization,  and 
according  to  the  testimony  of  some  of  your  own  best 
experts,  the  colored  race  is  destroying  itself  by  physi¬ 
cal  and  moral  uncleanness. 

Many  are  flocking  to  the  towns,  where  the  steady 
industry  of  the  country  is  exchanged  for  periods  of 
exciting  effort,  and  again,  of  utter  idleness.  The 
children  of  a  new  generation  are  growing  up  without 


2 


18— 


parental  restraint,  especially  where  the  old  fathers  and 
mothers  of  the  days  of  slavery  have  passed  away. 

Young  women,  educated  to  read  imaginative  ro¬ 
mances,  decline  to  work  in  household  service,  and 
crowd  the  streets  of  the  larger  towns  until  they  come 
to  the  police  court  and  worse.  Faithful  colored  pastors 
wring  their  hands  over  the  young  Sabbath  breakers, 
who  go  from  baseball  and  craps  by  day,  to  petty  mis¬ 
chief  and  thieving  by  night,  until  your  penitentiary 
rolls  with  1,300  convicts,  contains  75  per  cent,  of 
minors,  who  started  out  in  crime  for  an  occupation, 
and  are  already  post-graduates  from  the  police  station, 
first,  and  the  work-house  and  convict  road- working 
camp  in  the  second  place,  until  they  received  the  long 
sentence  that  consigns  them  to  the  penitentiary. 

Moral  dissolution  invites  physical  also,  and  swift 
retribution  follows. 

It  has  been  known  to  students  of  vital  statistics  for 
years,  that  the  black  population  was  steadily  decreas¬ 
ing.  At  first  the  proportion  of  births,  always  large, 
was  maintained,  but  the  death  rate  was  notably  greater 
than  that  of  the  whites.  Now  it  is  proven  that  the 
birth  rate  is  decreasing,  and  the  outlook  ominous  for 
the  fate  of  the  race,  unless  the  moral  status  is  elevated 
in  time. 

In  1790,  the  white  population  of  the  Union  was 
80.73  Per  cent,  in  number,  and  the  negro  19.27. 
Under  slavery,  the  increase  if  slow  was  steady,  in  its 
own  section.  But  the  falling  off  now  is  extraordinary, 
and  in  1890,  the  colored  population  was  only  11.93 
per  cent,  against  87.80.  The  increase  of  white  popu¬ 
lation  for  1880  to  1890  was  26.68  per  cent,  while  that 
of  the  negro  was  13.51. 

If  we  consider  North  Carolina,  when  the  Union  was 
founded,  she  had  27  per  cent,  colored,  which  increased 
in  successive  decades  until  it  reached  nearly  37  per 
cent.,  but  it  is  now  decreasing,  the  census  of  1890 
showing  34.67  per  cent,  or  about  the  ratio  of  1820. 
This  is  the  more  important,  as  we  have  extremely  few 
immigrants  as  yet,  and  have  lost  largely  by  white 
emigration  to  the  South  and  South-west. 

The  death  rate  in  Southern  cities  shows  a  large 
excess  of  colored  over  white,  without  exception. 
While  St,  Uouis,  Baltimore,  New  Orleans,  Washing- 


19 


ton,  Louisville,  etc.,  show  a  death  rate  of  17  to  22  per 
thousand  of  white  population,  the  rate  for  their  colored 
inhabitants  is  32  to  38. 

The  bulletin  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor 
for  May  1897  contains  the  results  of  investigations 
made  by  Atlanta  University  (colored ),  on  this  subject: 
Reports  for  fifteen  years  were  examined,  and  personal 
visits  made  in  colored  families.  It  was  shown  that  in 
the  leading  cities  of  Atlanta,  Baltimore,  Charleston, 
Richmond  and  Memphis,  the  annual  average  of  deaths 
of  the  whites,  was  from  18.59  to  23.19  Per  1,000,  and 
that  of  the  colored  was  from  31.15  to  44.08,  or  a  per¬ 
centage  in  excess,  of  73.8  average. 

The  details  of  the  reports  of  the  experts,  inspired 
by  anxiety  for  the  welfare  of  their  brethren,  show  that 
the  status  of  mortality  thus  revealed,  is  not  due  to  the 
environment,  as  from  overcrowding,  or  unsanitary  loca¬ 
tion,  or  the  infection  of  diseases  like  measles,  diptlie- 
ria,  fever  and  the  like,  because  the  excess  due  to  these 
affections  is  only  30  per  cent. 

But  the  ravages  of  consumption  cause  130  per  cent, 
excess  over  that  of  the  whites,  infantile  affections  and 
still  birth  165,  and  disease  directly  attributable  to 
vice,  no  less  than  482  per  cent.  There  is  an  enormous 
waste  of  child  life.  More  than  50  per  cent,  of  the 
children  of  negroes  born  in  Richmond,  die  during  the 
first  year.  The  old  fruitfulness,  too,  is  passing  away. 
Illustrations  are  given  to  show  the  effect  of  the  new 
conditions  upon  the  number  in  the  household,  which 
is  growing  less. 

In  Nasheville,  although  the  colored  population  is 
only  37  per  cent,  of  the  total,  they  suffer  72  per  cent, 
of  all  the  deaths  from  consumption.  Infant  mortality 
also,  is  increased  by  the  burdens  placed  upon  the 
women.  I11  Atlanta,  out  of  324  families  investigated, 
31  were  wholly  supported  by  the  labor  of  the  mother, 
and  205  by  the  mother,  altogether  or  in  part. 

The  same  report  shows  the  excess  per  cent,  of  con¬ 
sumption  in  Charleston,  S.  C.,  to  be  239.  It  should 
be  borne  in  mind  that  consumption  and  similar  wasting 
diseases  are  often  the  last  stages  of  the  life  of  the 
drunkard  and  the  debauchee.  One  of  the  investigating 
committee,  L-  M.  Henshaw,  speaks  as  follows,  of 
this : 


20 


“There  is  reason  for  great  concern  as  to  the  exces¬ 
sive  prevalence  of  this  disease  among  the  colored 
people.  Unless  checked,  in  the  course  of  years,  it 
may  be  a  deciding  factor  in  the  fall  of  the  race.  The 
prevalence  of  consumption,  scrofula,  syphilis  and  lep- 
leprosy  has  destroyed  the  weaker  races  before  the 
rising  tide  of  Christian  civilization.  The  Carib  of  the 
West  Indies,  the  Red  Men  of  these  shores,  the  natives 
of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  and  the  Aborigines  of 
Australia  and  New  Zeland  have  been  greatly  reduced 
or  disappeared  altogether  from  the  ravages  of  these 
diseases.  *  *  *  The  native  population  of  the 

Sandwich  Islands  a  hundred  years  ago,  was  100,000; 
to-day  it  is  35,000.“ 

Another  expert,  (Prof.  Harris)  sums  up  the  conclu¬ 
sion  as  follows  : 

“What  is  there  in  the  negro’s  social  condition  that 
is  responsible  for  these  diseases,  and  the  consequent 
mortality?  Be  it  known  to  all  men  that  we,  to-day  in 
this  Conference  assembled,  are  not  the  enemies  of  our 
people,  because  we  tell  them  the  truth.  While  I  do 
not  depreciate  sanitary  regulations,  I  am  convinced  that 
the  sine  qua  non  of  a  change  for  the  better  is  a  higher 
social  morality. 

Neither  his  poverty  nor  his  relation  to  the  white 
people  presents  any  real  impediment  to  his  phys¬ 
ical  development  and  good  health.  For  the  cause 
of  the  black  man’s  low  vitality,  susceptibility  to  dis¬ 
ease,  and  enormous  death  rate  we  must  look  to  the 
conditions  he  creates  for  himself.  *  *  *  I  have 

referred  to  the  maintenance  of  the  household  by  the 
mother,  and  the  impaired  chances  of  life  which  a 
debauched  percentage  bequeaths  to  childhood.  Infants 
in  their  graves  will  rise  up  against  this  evil  and  adul¬ 
terous  generation. 

Let  me  add,  that  where  shot  and  shell  and  bayonet, 
the  printing  press,  steam  engine  and  electric  motor 
have  slain  their  thousands,  licentious  men,  unchaste 
women  and  impure  homes  have  slain  their  tens  of 
thousands.  If  these  things  be  true,  as  charged  against 
us,  unless  a  social  revolution  be  wrought,  the  hand¬ 
writing  of  our  destiny  may  be  seen  upon  the  wall. 
History  teaches  that  war  nor  famine  nor  pesti¬ 
lence  exterminates  not  so  completely  and  rapidly  as 
vice.  ’  ’ 


21 


Time  fails  me  to  discuss  this  subject  in  the  light  of 
criminal  statistics.  You  know  how  our  jails  and  docks 
and  workhouses  are  filled.  How  to  provide  for  the  army 
of  colored  juvenile  offenders  is  a  great  obstacle  to  the 
establishment  of  State  Reform  Schools  and  Reforma¬ 
tories,  yet  they  must  come. 

It  has  been  pointed  out,  that  in  Pennsylvania  where 
there  is  but  little  prejudice  to  affect  the  black  man 
arraigned  for  trial,  that  while  he  forms  about  2  per 
cent,  of  the  population,  he  furnishes  16  per  cent,  of 
male  prisoners,  and  34  per  cent,  of  females.  I11 
Chicago,  which  has  been  irreverently  called  the 
“Negro’s'  Heaven,’’  they  form  ip?  per  cent,  of  the 
population,  but  10  per  cent,  of  the  prisoners.  Harris, 
whom  we  have  quoted,  well  declares  : 

“If  we  are  to  stike  at  the  root  of  this  matter,  it 
will  not  be  at  sanitary  regulations,  but  social  reconstruc¬ 
tion,  and  moral  regeneration.’ ’ 

Dr.  Curry  has  reminded  us,  “Education,  property,  * 
habits  of  thrift  and  self-control,  the  higher  achieve- | 
ments  of  civilization,  are  not  extemporized  nor  created  ! 
by  magic  or  legislation.  Behind  the  Caucasian,  lie 
centuries  of  the  uplifting  influences  of  the  institutions 
of  family  and  society,  the  churches,  the  State,  and  the 
salutary  effects  of  heredity.  Behind  the  negro  are 
centuries  of  ignorance,  barbarism,  slavery,  supersti-  I 
tion,  idolatry,  fetichism  and  the  transmissible  conse-  * 
quences  of  heredity.” 

Of  all  the  men  and  women  of  color  in  this  State, 
you  are  especially  blessed  with  the  means  of  the 
training  to  render  you  leaders  of  your  people,  our 
of  the  wilderness,  into  the  land  of  promise.  You 
are  called  to  the  high  duty  of  combining  mental  and 
industrial  power  with  nobility  of  moral  and  spiritual 
life.  You  must  disdain  anything  less.  The  physical 
and  moral  salvation  of  your  people  is  at  stake.  The 
blood  of  your  fellow-men  will  be  required  at  your 
hands.  Can  you  do  this  work  ?  Has  any  man  of 
your  race  already  begun  it  ? 

You  know  the  story  of  Booker  Washington.  Eman¬ 
cipation  came  when  he  was  seven,  and  he  followed  his 
mother  to  the  mountains  of  West  Yirginia,  to  toil  for 
her  support.  Why  is  he  not  there  to-day  ?  Because 
of  the  will  to  rise,  and  the  self-denial  and  perseverance 
to  back  it. 


He  learned  to  read,  by  bits,  between  his  hours  of 
labor,  and  then  journeyed,  chiefly  on  foot,  for  hun¬ 
dreds  of  miles  to  the  school  he  had  heard  of,  where 
boys  might  work  to  pay  for  education.  Loading 
ballast  at  the  wharves  in  Richmond,  and  sleeping  in 
the  open  air,  a  friendless  stranger,  he  earned  the 
money  to  clothe  himself  decently  and  enter  upon  the 
task  of  training.  When  Gen.  Armstrong  said,  “We 
will  see  what  you  can  do.”  the  day  was  won  for  fame 
and  fortune,  and  better,  for  infinite  good  among  his 
fellow-men.  After  graduation,  he  began  to  teach  a 
school  in  Alabama,  with  thirty  pupils;  in  which  a  man 
or  woman  might  pay  for  food  and  tuition  by  labor, 
faithful  study,  and  good  conduct. 

When  his  good  management  developed,  the  white 
people  of  Alabama  provided  a  State  appropriation  to 
aid  the  school;  it  attracted  notice  abroad,  and  gifts 
came  to  it  from  the  whole  country,  added  to  the  self¬ 
growth,  from  laboring  students. 

He  described  it  in  an  address  in  Brooklyn,  as  fol¬ 
lows  : 

“Since  1881,  the  Normal  School  of  Tuskegee  has 
grown  until  we  have  sixty-nine  instructors  and  800 
young  men  and  women  from  nineteen  States;  if  families 
of  instructors  are  added,  1,000  souls  are  on  our 
grounds.  We  cultivate  600  acres,  and  have  made 
1,500,000  brick  this  season.  We  have  built  up  in 
fourteen  years,  a  property  value  at  $225,000,  with 
thirty-seven  buildings,  on  1,400  acres  of  land,  thirty- 
four  from  student  labor,  with  no  mortgage  on  anything. 
There  is  required  for  the  work,  $70,000  a  year,  and 
there  are  800  delegates  in  the  yearly  Conference.” 

Is  not  a  man  who  can  organize  like  this,  to  be  list¬ 
ened  to?  And  this  is  his  language: 

“It  is  important  that  all  the  privileges  of  the  law  be 
ours.  It  is  vastly  more  important  that  we  be  prepared 
for  the  exercise  of  these  privileges.  *  *  * 

“None  will  deny  that  after  freedom  we  made  serious 
mistakes.  We  spent  time  and  money  attempting  to 
go  to  Congress  and  the  vState  Legislatures,  that  could 
have  been  better  used  in  becoming  real  estate  dealers 
or  carpenters  in  our  own  country.  vSo,  too,  in  attend¬ 
ing  political  conventions,  when  we  should  have  been 
.starting  a  dairy  farm  or  a  truck  garden.” 


By  his  wise  expressions,  no  less  than  his  industrial 
achievements,  he  seems  to  be  the  Providential  leader  of 
his  race.  I  will  therefore  add  a  paragraph  from  a 
recent  letter  to  a  prominent  colored  man  of  our  State. 
He  says: 

“Is  there  any  reason  why  the  negro  in'the  South 
should  continue  to  oppose  the  Southern  white  man  in 
his  politics?  Unconsciously  we  seem  to  have  gotten 
the  idea  into  our  blood  and  bones  that  we  are  only  act¬ 
ing  in  a  manly  way,  when  we  oppose  Southern  men 
with  our  votes.  *  *  * 

“In  some  way,  by  some  methods,  we  must  bring 
the  race  to  the  point  where  it  will  cease  to  feel  that 
the  only  way  for  it  to  succeed  is  to  oppose  every  thing 
suggested  by  the  Southern  white  men.  This,  I  con¬ 
sider  one  of  our  real  problems.” 

I  come  now  to  consider  the  most  serious  phase  of 
the  issues  and  possibilities  of  the  elevation  of  your 
race,  and  its  peaceful  dwelling  in  these  States  of  its 
nativity.  I  invoke  your  attention  to  a  living  and 
burning  question  which  concerns  peculiarly  our  popu¬ 
lation,  with  so  large  a  number  of  negroes  living  in 
near  neighborhood  to  the  whites,  and  in  s:>me  sections, 
preponderating  over  the  white  residents  in  number. 

The  recent  atrocious  crimes  committed  in  one  of 
these  States,  and  the  barbarous  death  meted  out  to  the 
brute  who  performed  the  deeds,  have  so  shocked 
thoughtful  men  of  both  races,  that  it  is  hoped  that 
out  of  the  discussion  forced  by  these  horrible  crimes, 
there  may  come  a  better  condition  of  things — a  remedy 
for  these  evils. 

We  are  certainly  face  to  face  with  conditions  which 
not  only  affect  the  peace  and  good  order  of  society  for 
the  time  being,  but  our  very  civilization.  This  state 
of  affairs  must  be  discussed  and  a  speedy  change 
secured.  If  not,  society  dissolves  into  its  elements, 
and  then  as  always  the  weaker  race  will  suffer.  Wis¬ 
dom  requires  that  this  consideration  be  temperate, 
frank  and  candid.  It  is  in  this  spirit  that  I  invoke 
you  to  heed  what  I  have  to  suggest. 

It  had  as  well  be  known  of  all  men  that  white  men 
hold  the  purity  of  home,  and  the  virtue  of  pure  women 
as  sacred,  and  that  the  wretch  who  invades  the  one 
and  assaults  the  other  must  die.  There  is  no  division 


24 


of  sentiment  among  honorable  men  on  this  question. 
It  is  only  when  they  come  to  adopt  the  method  by 
which  this  death  penalty  shall  be  inflicted  that  they 
differ. 

The  advocate  of  lynch  law  says  the  mob  of  excited 
and  angry  men  is  the  speedy  and  stern  tribunal  by 
which  the  intolerable  wrong  should  be  punished,  and 
thus  arrest  crime  by  swift  retribution.  But  the 
thoughtful,  conservative  law-abiding  citizen  says,  that 
all  violations  of  the  law  however  frequent,  should 
meet  punishment  after  trial  according  to  the  law  of 
the  land. 

I  take  my  stand  with  the  law-abiding  class,  but  I 
wish  it  distinctly  understood  that  I  open  my  lips  in 
favor  of  inflicting  speedy  and  certain  death  upon  the 
brute  who  spills  innocent  blood,  or  applies  the  incen¬ 
diary  torch  to  an  inhabited  home,  or  lays  unholy  hands 
upon  innocent  women.  I  believe  that  the  security  of 
property,  of  society,  of  the  home,  of  the  safety  of  the 
individual  and  all  he  holds  dear,  will  best  be  conserved 
by  the  prompt  and  faithful  execution  of  the  law. 

Lawlessness  begets  lawlessness.  When  the  barriers 
of  the  law  are  broken  down  at  one  point  by  one 
class,  they  may  soon  be  broken  down  at  another 
point,  it  may  be  by  another  class,  and  for  another 
object.  Vengeance  begets  reprisal  in  revenge.  When 
the  white  man,  whose  pride  is  that  he  has  enclosed 
human  society  in  the  bulwarks  of  the  law,  and  is  the 
special  custodian  of  that  law,  goes  beyond  it  to  inflict 
punishment  on  the  black  man,  it  will  not  be  long 
before  some  vicious  brute  will  in  turn  wreak  wrong 
and  outrage  upon  some  defenceless  one.  The  more 
revolting  the  crime  of  the  one,  the  more  atrocious  that 
of  the  other.  Let  us  hope  for  the  sake  of  our  common 
humanity  that  the  depths  have  been  reached. 

Experience,  even  in  lawlessness  and  crime,  ought 
to  teach  something.  If  we  take  no  higher  view  than 
to  appeal  to  that  experience,  it  seems  to  me  that  he 
must  cease  to  advocate  lynch  law.  It  has  been  tried, 
in  secret  and  in  public,  in  the  night  and  in  the  day,  in 
its  less  cruel  methods,  and  in  every  sickening  detail, 
and  yet  the  very  crimes  it  was  intended  to  suppress, 
are  on  the  increase.  To  say  nothing  more  of  lynch 
law,  it  has  been  a  lamentable  failure. 


25— 


The  wretch  who  is  capable  of  committing  these 
crimes,  having  no  respect  for  the  law,  has  no  dread  of 
the  lawless.  He  has  not  been  deterred  by  fear  of  mob 
violence.  Speculate  upon  it  as  we  may,  the  fact 
remains  to  confront  those  who  uphold  lynch  law,  that 
it  has  not  suppressed  or  reduced  the  crime  it  denounces, 
and  undertakes  to  punish.  Then  may  I  not  appeal  to 
those  who  have  embraced  it,  to  stand  aside,  and  let 
the  law  of  the  land  try  its  hand  ? 

The  question  of  the  future  of  the  Southern  negro  as 
developed  by  education  and  industrial  training  is  of 
great  interest,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  yet  it  is 
secondary  in  the  immediate  present,  when  the  social 
order  of  the  Southern  country  is  in  such  great  peril. 
That  question  must  be  deferred,  until  we  have  restored 
safety,  and  a  feeling  of  security  to  the  humblest  woman 
in  the  poorest  cabin,  in  the  ramotest  corner  of  the 
most  thinly  settled  portion  of  the  South.  The  South¬ 
ern  white  man  alone  cannot  restore  that  security.  He 
can  help,  by  the  enforcement  of  the  law,  but  as  the 
loss  of  the  sense  of  safety  did  not  come  through  him, 
he  cannot  restore  it.  That  is  the  mission  of  the  leaders 
of  the  negro  race. 

The  preachers,  .  the  teachers,  the  doctors,  the 
best  equipped  men  of  your  race,  must  address  them¬ 
selves  to  that  task.  They  must  be  instant  in  season 
and  out  of  season.  They  must  say  one  word  in 
denunciation  of  lynching,  where  they  utter  ninety-nine 
in  condemnation  of  the  crime  which  has  evoked  lynch 
law.  They  must  create  a  public  sentiment  in  their 
race,  so  strong  that  the  negro  criminal  shall  be  held  in 
the  same  detestation  among  his  own  race,  as  the  white 
criminal  is  held  among  his  own.  They  must  make  a 
public  sentiment  among  negroes  so  strong  that  no 
brute  in  the  most  obscure  corner  can  fail  to  be  deterred 
by  it.  Crime  must  be  made  dishonorable.  Criminals 
must  be  made  to  feel  that  crime  shuts  the  door  of 
respecable  homes  to  the  perpetrator.  When  the  law¬ 
breaker  returns  from  the  penitentiary,  let  him  find 
that  he  is  disgraced,  that  the  worthy  will  not  have  him 
as  an  associate. 

As  a  race,  the  moral  elevation  of  the  negro  has  been 
retarded,  because  the  returned  convict  has  often  been 
received  as  the  victim  of  persecution,  instead  of  the 


—26 


subject  of  just  punishment.  Let  him  be  a  Ishmaelite, 
an  out-cast,  to  be  received  nowhere,  except  by  charity 
and  upon  probation.  From  this  college  let  the  senti¬ 
ment  go  that  the  negro  criminal  is  not  only  degrading 
himself,  but  his  race,  and  let  him  know  the  ostracism 
that  white  criminals  have  always  been  made  to  feel. 

I  know  that  the  great  majority  of  negroes,  the  great 
mass  of  your  people,  condemns  rape  as  well  as  the 
lynching  for  it,  but  they  must  know  that  the  first  step 
in  ending  both  is  to  make  a  public  sentiment  against 
the  first  so  strong  that  no  man  will  dare  commit  it. 
This  is  a  herculean  task,  calling  for  the  highest  wisdom 
and  strongest  determination. 

Booker  Washington  is  authority  for  the  statement 
that  no  graduate  of  a  college  has  been  guilty  of  the 
crime  of  rape. 

This  is  a  high  tribute  to  the  character  of  their  insti¬ 
tution,  but  it  is  a  negative  virtue  that  does  not  measure 
the  respectibility  of  the  graduates.  They  are  lights 
that  must  not  be  hid  under  a  bushel.  Their  influence 
should  be  seen  and  felt  in  the  darkest  corner.  Their 
education  is  a  failure  if  it  do  nothing  but  prevent  the 
commission  of  gross  crimes.  It  will  be  a  success  only 
where  its  influence  uplifts  the  race. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  about  the  responsibility  of 
wealth,  and  are  told  that  the  rich  man  is  but  the  cus¬ 
todian  of  money,  and  is  untrue  to  his  stewardship  if 
he  does  not  use  his  wealth  for  good  purposes.  Money 
is  only  one  kind  of  wealth.  Education  is  wealth. 
Character  is  wealth.  A  man  whose  education  does 
nothing  except  to  give  him  happiness  or  strength,  and 
effects  nothing  for  the  world,  is  as  mean  a  miser  as  the 
millionaire  who  uses  his  money  solely  for  his  own 
gratification. 

The  Federal  and  the  State  governments  contribute 
large  sums  yearly  for  this  college  and  others  like  it,  to 
train  the  youth  of  the  colored  race,  not  merely  to 
enable  such  students  as  are  gathered  together,  to  learn 
more  of  their  own  betterment.  That  is  the  smallest 
part  of  the  object.  It  is  given  in  order  that  you  may 
carry  light  and  truth  and  higher  ideas  into  the  cabins 
of  the  most  ignorant.  Unless  you  do  this,  the  knowl¬ 
edge  gained  and  unused  makes  you  a  miser,  and  there 
is  no  character  more  despicable  than  one  who  hoards 


■27- 


iu  selfishness,  instead  of  using  his  store  to  bless  man¬ 
kind. 

Eet  me  beg  of  you  then,  teachers  and  students  of 
this  institution,  and  leaders  of  your  race  throughout 
the  South,  to  set  yourself  earnestly  to  the  task  of 
stopping  the  crime  for  which  lynching  follows.  I 
repeat  this  injunction,  I  press  it  upon  you  from  a  sense 
of  its  momentous  gravity  to  both  races.  It  is  a  matter 
of  such  magnitude  that  it  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  it. 

Unfortunately",  in  recent  years,  men  under  extreme 
provocation  have  taken  the  law  in  their  own  hands, 
— anticipating  the  regular  administration  of  justice, 
and  have  inflicted  summary  execution  upon  persons 
known  or  strongly  suspected  of  flagrant  crimes  against 
society.  This  is  greatly  to  be  deplored,  I  acknowledge, 
and  if  continued,  must  lead  to  fearful  consequences. 
All  thoughtful  men  know  that  the  existence  of  society, 
and  the  strength  and  value  of  government  depends 
upon  the  maintenance  of  established  law.  The  law  is 
as  necessary^  to  the  preservation  of  order  and  society 
as  the  attraction  of  gravity  to  the  solidity  and  perma¬ 
nence  of  the  mighty  system  of  nature. 

The  eclipse  of  the  sun  brings  darkness  upon  the 
earth  no  more  certainly  than  the  eclipse  of  the  law, 
brings  darkness  upon  society".  The  horrors  inevitable 
upon  lawlessness  would  be  inconceivable,  if  the  certain 
restoration  of  authority  was  not  prompt  and  posi¬ 
tive.  Tike  earthquakes  and  cyclones — if  it  lasted — 
nothing  would  be  left  but  wreck  and  desolation. 
Society"  without  law  would  be  like  a  trip  without 
compass  or  pilot,  left  in  storm  and  darkness  to  the  fury 
of  the  winds  and  waves.  The  French  revolution, 
horror  of  ages,  illustrated  this  immutable  truth  in 
blood  and  fire. 

Every  consideration  of  humanity,  every  argument 
of  reason,  every"  principle  of  policy,  every  plea  for 
justice,  condemns  with  one  voice  a  resort  to  lawless 
force.  Philosophy  denounces  the  principle.  Expe¬ 
rience  demonstrates  it  to  be  self-destructive.  Universal 
history  repeats  that  the  faithful  adminstration  of 
established  law  is  the  only  remedy  for  crime.  The 
Great  Book  teaches  the  same  everlasting  lesson.  It  is 
only  when  the  evils  of  government  itself  become  unen¬ 
durable,  that  the  sacred  right  of  revolution  can  be 
invoked. 


28 


This  must  be  a  land  of  law;  the  action  of  no  body  of 
men,  however  respectable  in  numbers  or  character, 
which  takes  human  life  or  destroys  property  without 
lafwul  authority,  can  be  justified  in  conscience  or  policy. 
How  shall  this  great  evil  be  reformed?  Ret  us  first 
look,  as  I  have  said,  for  its  causes.  Deep  and  powerful 
reasons  must  have  brought  about,  among  good  people, 
the  extraordinary  and  almost  revolutionary  movements 
of  which  I  have  spoken  as  lynch  law. 

Dr.  Deems  truly  said,  we  ought  “to  look  into  our¬ 
selves  and  learn  the  truth.”  Here  is  North  Carolina, 
our  liberty-loving,  law-abiding,  peace-keeping  people 
who  for  a  hundred  years  have  established  for  her  this 
character.  Nowhere  is  there  greater  obedience, — more 
reverence  for  law.  Yet  here  there  has  been  in  the  last 
thirty  years  more  lynch  law  than  in  all  her  history 
heretofore.  Her  people  have  intelligence,  love  justice, 
hate  oppression,  desire  peace.  Education  is  free,  good 
and  just  laws  prevail,  and  men’s  rights  are  secure  in 
^  her  borders. 

Now  look  into  your  hearts  and  memories  and  answer. 
How  many  of  the.se  lawless  acts  of  lynch  law  have 
come  from  burning  barns,  from  mills  set  on  fire  at 
midnight,  from  cotton  gins  destroyed  ?  How  many 
from  once  happy  homes,  desolated  over  sleeping  women? 
And  in  this  Christian  age,  in  profound  peace,  must  I 
speak  it  ?  How  many  pure  tender,  good  women  have 
been  pursued,  assaulted  and  violated-— more  than  life 
taken — by  inhuman  mosters  in  the  shape  of  men  !  Oh, 
is  there  wonder  that  men  rise  in  their  might  to  defend 
and  protect  their  homes,  their  mothers,  wives,  daghters, 
friends?  Was  there  ever  a  time,  an  age,  or  country, 
in  which  manhood  would  have  done  less?  Cold  must 
be  the  social  philosophy  that  can  wait  for  the  courts 
to  behold  the  desolate  victim  in  the  agony  of  reciting 
before  the  public  her  story  of  the  crudest  wounds  ever 
inflicted  on  body  and  soul  ! 

Let  history  speak.  In  great  old  Rome,  the  pure 
and  lovely  Eucretia  is  despoiled  by  Tarquin  the  Proud, 
by  stealth  in  her  home.  She  will  not  survive  the 
wrong  to  her  purity — she  plunges  a  dagger  into  her 
heart.  Brutus  displays  the  bloody  knife,  the  Roman 
people  rise  as  one  man,  drive  the  Tarquins  from 
Rome,  destroy  the  family  of  kings  and  establish  the 


29- 


republic  again.  It  is  two  hundred  years  later;  Appius 
Claudius,  Chief  of  the  Decemvirs,  the  ten  chosen 
rulers,  claimed  the  beautiful  Virginia,  daughter  of  a 
Roman  soldier,  for  his  slave  and  victim — the  corrupt 
judge,  awarded  the  victim  to  a  corrupt  tyrant,  and  the 
humble,  but  noble  father,  to  save  his  beloved  child, 
stuck  his  dagger  into  her  bosom.  At  sight  of  the 
weapon,  the  Roman  armies  broke  their  lines,  marched 
at  a  run  to  the  city,  slew  the  oppressor,  and  broke  up 
forever  the  institution  of  the  Decemvirs. 

Deeper  than  the  flow  of  the  tides,  certain  as  the 
rising  of  the  sun,  constant  as  the  laws  of  nature,  is  the 
sense  in  man  of  the  duty  to  protect  and  vindicate 
woman,  the  spring  of  life,  happiness  and  purity  ! 
Know  all  men,  that  in  this  land  of  ours,  women  shall 
be  safe.  Every  spot  in  North  Carolina  shall  be  her 
sanctuary.  At  home,  on  the  highways,  in  the  forest, 
everywhere,  she  shall  be  sacred  and  inviolable. 

You  are  intelligent  and  moral  men  and  women  of 
character,  and  you  will  hear  the  truth,  which  never 
hurts  the  good.  The  criminal  statisticsof  the  State  show 
that  considering  population,  there  are  fourteen  times  as 
much  crime  among  the  negroes  as  among  the  white 
people.  Therefore  the  bitterness  of  lynch  law  has 
fallen  principally,  not  exclusively,  on  the  colored  race. 
But  these  foulest  of  crimes  are  still  committed.  Now 
is  your  great,  your  noble  opportunity.  You  can  and 
must  overcome  these  accursed  evils. 

You  must  bring  all  the  energies  of  your  people,  all 
the  influence  you  possess  over  your  race,  to  impress 
powerfully  the  hearts  of  your  young  men  against  these 
terrible  enormities.  The  men  with  the  midnight  torch, 
the  fiendish  assailants  of  women,  the  brutal  criminals 
who  murder  without  remorse,  must  be  pursued  to  justice 
by  the  vigilance  of  your  own  people.  In  your  families, 
at  the  schools,  in  the  churches  of  the  living  God,  by 
your  orators,  in  all  circles  and  associations,  every 
effort  must  be  made  to  create  a  sentiment  and  purpose 
against  these  vices  and  constant  outrages. 

You  must  not  form  a  society  of  the  educated  for 
mutual  pleasure  and  advantage.  You  must  go  into 
the  highways,  and  obtain  the  command  of  the  igno¬ 
rant,  accepting  the  creed  that  he  would  be  the  greatest 
must  be  the  servant.  After  you  have  done  all  you  can 


V 


—30— 

to  prevent  the  crime,  if  some  brute  does  commit  it, 
join  with  your  white  neighbors  to  hunt  him  down  and 
bring  him  to  speed)"  trial.  Frown  upon  any  who  would 
excuse  the  crime,  or  protect  the  villian,  and  create 
such  public  opinion,  as  to  compel  all  to  follow  your 
example.  Do  you  shrink  from  this?  Then  you  are 
not  worthy  to  be  teachers  and  leaders. 

I  believe  that  the  great  majority  of  negroes  would 
follow  the  leadership  that  leads.  The  negro  preacher 
and  teacher  who  sits  still  and  says  nothing  when  an 
outrage  is  committed  by  a  brute  of  his  own  race,  but 
comes  out  in  denunciation  of  the  mob  that  lynches 
the  offender  is  a  moral  coward  who  is  an  enemy  to  the 
uplifting  of  his  people,  and  the  moral  elevation  of  his 
country. 

The  white  man  of  the  South  has  a  mission  as  impor¬ 
tant  to  perform.  He  has  not  always  appreciated  the 
need  of  a  speedy  enforcement  of  the  law,  nor  has  the 
penalty  been  rigid  enough,  in  some  cases.  The  people 
will  not  permit  the  ravisher  to  go  unpunished.  That 
is  as  true  as  Holy  Writ,  but  I  am  hereto  declare  again 
that  it  is  the  high  duty  of  the  Southern  white  man  to 
see  that  the  execution  is  accompanied  by  the  sanction 
of  law,  and  is  not  through  the  torch  of  the  over¬ 
wrought  multitude.  It  is  not  out  of  regard  for  the 
wretch,  that  this  duty  is  imposed  upon  us.  Atrocious 
as  was  the  maiming  and  burning  in  Georgia,  it  cannot 
be  said  that  the  brute  did  not  deserve  it.  The  ener¬ 
gies  of  the  white  man  must  be  put  forth  strenuously, 
not  in  the  interest  of  the  ravisher,  but  for  the  honor 
of  the  South,  and  the  preservation  of  its  civilization. 

Det  the  laws  be  amended,  to  secure  a  speedy  trial, 
so  that  no  man  can  say:  “We  had  to  lynch,  because 
the  delays  of  the  law  are  such  as  to  defeat  justice,  or 
destroy  its  effect.’'  Degal  execution  where  guilt  is 
ascertained,  should  be  speedy  and  certain.  Technical¬ 
ities  and  advantages  to  criminals  as  to  challenge  must 
be  wiped,  and  every  man  must  know  that  execution 
will  surely  follow.  That  is  the  first  duty  of  the  law- 
abiding  citizens;  of  legislators  and  judicial  officers. 

The  second  is  of  like  importance.  The  people  must 
be  taught,  day  by  day,  that  no  man  or  set  of  men  have 
the  right  to  constitute  themselves  judge,  jurors,  and 
executors,  even  when  the  guilt  is  certain;  that  if  good 


31— 


men  tolerate  lynching  for  rape,  worse  men  will  employ 
it  foi  barn-burning,  as  they  did  in  Tennessee,  or  for 
horse-stealing,  as  they  tried  to  do  lately,  in  New  York. 
It  is  better  that  one  ravisher  should  escape,  deplorable 
as  that  v\  ould  be,  than  that  good  men  should  become 
murderers.  The  future  of  our  section  depends  upon 
our  ability  to  stamp  out  lynch  law,  and  to  secure  that, 
the  people  should  be  guaranteed  the  prompt  legal 
execution  of  the  guilty. 

Devotion  to  justice  and  humanity  was  sublimely  dis¬ 
played  in  the  old  Confederate  soldier  of  Georgia,  Maj. 
W.  W.  Flowers,  not  long  ago.  When  in  April  last,  a 
mob  was  ready  to  lynch  a  negro  preacher,  that  brave 
old  man  rode  among  them  just  as  the  noose  was 
adjusted.  By  the  weird  light  these  men  carried,  he 
confronted  them,  declared  his  belief  in  the  innocence  of 
the  accused,  and  made  an  impassioned  plea  that  the  law 
take  its  course. 

In  the  days  of  chivalry,  men  put  their  lives  on  a 
spear’s  point  for  the  lady  of  their  love.  Tauncelot 
and  Arthur  are  not  more  worthy  to  be  embalmed  in  the 
story  than  this  gallant  old  Confederate  who  put  his  life 
in  jeopardy,  to  save  an  humble  negro.  To  the  mes¬ 
sage  of  the  mob  to  leave  the  town  for  his  own  good, 
the  sturdy  veteran  replied  with  the  courage  of  a  Coeur 
de  Dion,  “Tell  them  that  my  muscles  are  not  trained  for 
running;  tell  them  that  I  have  heard  the  whistle  of  the 
minies  from  a  thousand  rifles,  and  I  am  not  frightened 
by  this  crowd.” 

To  the  chivalrous  men  ot  my  race,  who  count  the 
protection  of  their  women  above  love  of  life,  I  com¬ 
mend  the  self-denying  bravery  of  the  ‘Old  Rebel’  who 
could  go  to  a  bloody  grave,  if  need  be,  in  upholding 
the  Anglo  Saxon’s  obedience  to  law.  The  hero  who 
will  live  in  history  is  not  the  leader  of  the  mob  who 
led  it  but  for  the  infraction  of  the  law,  but  the  fight- 
in0'  Confederate  who  had  the  courage  to  withstand  his 
infuriated  neighbors,  and  tell  them  that  lawful  hanging 
and  not  the  uncertain  execution  by  a  mob  was  the  best 
defence  of  womanhood;  yes,  even  when  that  mob  is 
animated  by  indignation  at  the  crime  that  transcends 
all  crimes. 

Such  are  the  responsibilities  imposed  upon  both 
races.  We  can  not  run  away  from  duty.  The  rich 


32 


may  seek  some  other  land,  if  they  have  “no  stomach 
for  the  fight,”  but  the  mass  of  white  men  and  black 
men  who  inhabit  the  Southern  States,  will  live  and 
die  here.  If  the  problem  is  to  be  solved,  we  must  do 
it.  The  people  of  the  North,  however  desirous,  can 
afford  no  help,  except  to  give  of  their  means  to  edu¬ 
cate.  I  know  not  what  the  providence  of  God  holds 
in  store  for  you.  Whether  here,  in  Africa,  or  else¬ 
where,  3^011  must  work  out  your  own  destiny:  This  I 
do  know,  that  there  is  no  place  anywhere  for  an 
honorable  history  unless  industry,  thrift,  and  upright¬ 
ness  be  the  mainsprings  of  your  life. 

Public  opinion  at  the  North,  especially  the  press, 
must  condemn  as  loudly  and  promptly  the  work  of  the 
mob  in  the  North  and  West  as  they  are  ready  to 
condemn  in  the  South.  It  must  be  as  legitimate  for 
the  men  in  black  to  mine  coal  or  otherwise  honorabty 
earn  his  bread  in  Pana,  Illinois,  as  in  Birmingham, 
Alabama.  Until  then,  the  writer  beyond  Mason’s  and 
Dixon’s  line,  who  pulls  the  mote  from  our  eyes,  can 
not  convince  the  world  that  he  is  sincere.  It  must  be 
as  resprehensible  in  the  Governor  of  Illinois  or  any 
other  Northern  or  Western  State  to  station  soldier}^  at 
the  railroad  stations  on  the  borders  of  those  States  to 
prevent  the  incoming  of  the  colored  man  as  a  laborer, 
even  by  the  shedding  of  blood,  as  such  conduct  would 
be  by  the  governor  of  Mississippi  or  North  Carolina. 
How  dare  they  sit  in  judgment  upon  our  shorcomings? 

The  Constitution  declares  that  the  citizens  of  each 
State  are  entitled  to  the  privileges  and  immunities  of 
citizenship  in  any  other,  throughout  this  Union. 
Who  made  the  negro  a  citizen  ?  It  must  come  to  this, 
that  it  is  just  as  inexcusable  for  the  mob  to  serve 
notice  upon  the  unoffending  black  man  in  Pennsylvania 
or  Ohio  to  flee  the  town  under  penalty  of  death,  as 
such  proceedings  are  unjustifiable  in  Arkansas  or 
South  Carolina,  before  that  public  opinion  can  be 
respected. 

When  we  take  into  account  how  many  times  more 
negroes  there  are  in  the  South  than  in  the  North,  I  can 
not  say  that  these  onslaughts  upon  the  colored  man  occur 
any  more  often  in  the  South  than  in  the  North.  Perhaps 
the  difference  lies  largely  in  the  fact  that  our  sins  are 
magnified,  and  theirs  condoned,  by  the  press  which  has 


—38 


the  ear  of  the  American  people.  I  have  no  sympathy 
with  such  a  sense  of  justice. 

I  am  aware  of  the  fact  that  I  am  speaking  plainly 
here.  I  come  with  that  intent.  My  words  have  been 
measured;  you  can  afford  to  heed  them.  I  violate  no 
confidence  when  I  tell  you  that  I  am  regarded  as  a 
friend  of  the  black  man  in  this  State,  and  these  are 
times  of  unrest  with  your  race.  But  you  may  confide 
in  my  words,  when  I  declare  to  you  that  no  disquiet 
need  be  felt  by  the  honorable,  well-behaved,  worthy 
men  among  your  people.  I  am  here  as  a  representa¬ 
tive  Anglo  Saxon  whose  ancestors  suffered  with 
Washington  at  Valley  Forge,  to  assure  you  that  the 
welfare  of  the  black  is'  safe  in  the  keeping  of  the 
Anglo  Saxon,  and  that  the  home  best  suited  for  the 
black  man,  everything  considered,  and  beyond  all 
comparison,  is  the  Southland. 

That  this  is  your  best  home,  for  which  you  should 
make  every  effort  to  be  worthy,  is  conceded  by  the 
language  of  your  Alabama  leader.  When  in  Brooklyn 
he  pointed  out  the  fact  that  the  negro  mechanic  is 
shut  out  by  trade  unions  in  the  North,  saying:  “The 
negro  can  sooner  conquer  Southern  prejudice  in  the 
civilized  world,  than  learn  to  compete  with  the  North 
in  the  business  world.  In  field,  in  factory,  in  the 
markets,  the  South  presents  a  better  opportunity  to 
to  the  negro  to  earn  a  living,  than  is  found  in  the 
North.”  *  *  * 

“In  the  North,  you  can  encourage  the  education 
among  the  masses  which  will  throw  open  the  doors  of 
your  shops  and  factories  to  give  our  black  men  and 
women  the  opportunity  to  earn  a  dollar.  Tet  it  be 
said  that  in  all  parts  of  our  country,  there  is  no  dis¬ 
tinction  of  race  in  the  opportunity  to  earn  an  honest 
living.” 

Is  it  possible  that  such  an  appeal  must  be  made  in 
metropolitan  New  York?  Yea,  verily.  Strange  does 
it  seem  to  those  who  have  seen  thousands  of  negro 
workmen  passing  from  our  great  tobacco  factories, 
and  who  note  white  and  black  carpenters  working 
together  in  peace  and  unity  every  day. 

It  is  not  without  its  bearing  in  this  matter,  that  one 
recalls  the  exclusion  of  the  Chinese,  and  the  absorption 
of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  with  no  consent'  of  the 


3 


:34 


natives  asked,  and  no  likelihood  of  granting  them  the 
ballot;  and  of  the  contemptuous  spirit  toward  the 
Cubans  and  the  people  of  Porto  Rico,  to  say  nothing 
of  schools  to  rule  the  Philippines  outside  of  our  elec¬ 
tion  republican  system.  It  would  seem  that  the 
anxiety  of  the  Northern  politician  for  the  black  man’s 
ballot  was  chiefly  to  use  that  ballot  indirectly,  for 
himself.  But  his  interest  in  the  negro  does  not  seem  to 
be  strong  enough  to  provide  him  with  the  work  that 
feeds  his  wife  and  children. 

Ret  me  be' excused  for  citing  two  illustrations,  of 
many,  in  my  personal  experience.  Sometime  ago,  in  a 
certain  Northern  city,  I  had  some  business  with  a 
colored  man  (a  carpenter),  and  after  it  had  been  dis¬ 
patched,  he  took  occasion  to  thank  me  for  the  kindness 
and  courtesy  which  he  said  I  had  shown  him,  and 
added:  “Col.  Carr,  I  was  raised  a  slave  in  Tennesee; 
I  have  lived  in  South  Carolina  and  Virginia,  and  came 
thence  to  this  city.  Never  in  any  of  these  Southern  States 
was  I  proscribed  on  account  of  color.  But  since  com¬ 
ing  to  this  city,  I  have  worked  for  three  years  in  the 
shop  where  I  am  now  engaged,  and  not  once,  in  all 
that  time,  has  a  single  white  man  in  the  shop  spoken 
to  me — and  there  are  about  one  hundred  of  them. 
Not  once.” 

I  thought,  what  a  contrast  is  that,  to  our  life.  At 
the  time,  I  was  giving  employment  to  perhaps  two 
hundred  and  fifty  white  people,  and  as  many,  may  be, 
of  colored  people. 

Again.  Shortly  after  the  late  unpleasant  disturb¬ 
ances  in  Wilmington,  I  was  in  New  York,  and  coming 
down  Broadway  one  evening,  just  after  dark.  The 
night  was  dark  and  cold,  and  I  hurried  to  escape  the 
chilling  blast,  when  I  was  stopped  by  a  plaintive  voice 
“Master,  please,”  the  black  man  said,  as  he  extended 
his  hand  for  an  alms.  He  said  he  was  a  painter  by 
trade,  and  led  me  to  a  gas  light  merely  to  show  his 
paint  stained  clothes  to  corroborate  his  words.  He 
declared  that  he  would  rather  work  than  beg,  “But  I 
am  a  black  man,  and  for  that  reason  I  am  not  permit¬ 
ted  to  make  my  living  at  my  calling  in  this  great  city, 
I  am  boycotted  and  proscribed  to  such  an  extent  that 
1  can  scarcely  ever  get  work,  and  when  I  do,  it  is 
such  that  no  one  else  cares  to  take;  and  often  I  go 
hungry.” 


He  affirmed,  and  I  think  he  was  honest,  that  it  had 
been  three  days  since  he  had  a  meal.  I  told  him  that 
1  was  from  the  South,  from  North  Carolina,  where  it 
is  alleged  that  we  kill  negroes  for  amusement;  burn 
their  houses,  destroy  their  property:  and  asked  him  if 
he  were  not  afraid  to  seek  alms  of  a  Southern  man. 

' ‘No,  master, ”  he  replied,  “my  experience  has  taught 
me,  if  I  have  learned  anything,  that  the  Southern  man 
is  the  negro’s  truest  friend,  and  the  South  is  the  ne¬ 
gro’s  best  home.” 

It  is  upon  a  civilization  of  true  manhood  and  genuine 
womanhood  alone,  that  you  can  succeed.  You  who 
are  to  giaduate  from  this  institution  must  do  your 
duty,  and  you  will  not  go  unrewarded.  Good  men 
will  mark  your  course,  conscience  will  approve  and 
hope  for  your  race  will  return.  Build  up  organizations, 
utilize  the  power  of  your  press  to  enlist  your  people 
against  wrong-doing,  and  in  favor  of  what  is  right. 

Then  will  come  the  revolution  that  will  be  the  salva¬ 
tion  of  your  race;  then  you  will  win  a  victory  as 
glorious  as  any  in  history;  then  the  true  prosperity  of 
your  people  will  begin;  then  will  your  lives  be  useful 
and  happy,  for  you  will  have  conquered  your  passions, 
and  set  your  feet  upon  vice. 

What  3^011  do  for  conscience  and  justice  will  be  ap¬ 
preciated.  The  negroes  who  fought  the  British  on 
Long  Island,  at  Saratoga  and  at  Yorktown  received 
their  freedom,  and  were  honored  all  their  lives.  Rob¬ 
ert  Butt,  the  slave  grave-digger  of  Portsmouth,  in  the 
yellow  fever  of  1855,  who  would  not  desert  his  post,  in 
time  of  dire  distress,  and  extreme  temptation,  was 
freed  and  enriched  by  the  subscriptions  of  the  whole 
people,  who  mourned  for  him  at  his  death,  as  a  public 
benefactor. 

Go  forth  like  Booker  Washington,  from  Hampton, 
with  the  gospel  of  faith  and  work.  Your  field  is 
around  you,  among  the  ignorant,  prejudiced  and  inex¬ 
perienced  of  your  race,  which  must  have  guidance,  or 
fall  into  chaos.  Thank  God,  that  there  is  not,  and 
never  will  be  a  Southern  Hayti,  in  this  country.  Bet¬ 
ter  plow  all  your  days,  than  reign  in  a  land  red  tor  a 
century  with  brothers’  blood. 

The  sweetest  element  in  human  happiness  is  the 
thought  of  duty  performed.  I11  this  connection,  I 


cannot  forbear  the  privilege  of  holding  np  for  your 
guidance  and  reverent  memory ,  one  of  your  fellow- 
citizens  of  North  Carolina,  whose  qualities  of  mind 
and  heart  made  him  the  peer  of  any  member  of  your 
race,  of  which  history  bears  record. 

A  man  of  irreproachable  character,  of  strong  intel¬ 
lect  and  clear  judgment,  recognizing  the  line  of 
demarcation  between  the  rpces,  and  understanding  the 
self-restraint  which  that  implies,  it  may  be  doubted,  if 
any  one  of  his  color  ever  had  as  much  influence  with 
the  white  men  of  North  Carolina,  for  the  benefit  of  his 
own  people,  as  the  lamented  J.  C.  Price,  of  Salisbury. 

Some  among  you  knew  the  admiration  I  felt  for  his 
talents  and  witnessed  the  gratification  with  which  good 
men  saw  his  efforts  wisely  directed  for  your  true  wel¬ 
fare. 

You  have  good  and  faithful  laborers  to-day,  if  you 
will  heed  their  counsel.  And  you  will  be  fortunate  if 
you  walk  in  the  footsteps  and  hallow  the  memory  of 
such  a  man  as  Price,  faithful  in  his  day  and  generation 
and  called  to  his  reward.  Verily,  “A  good  name  is 
better  than  riches.” 

And  may  Providence  so  guide  your  steps,  that  your 
work  in  life  maybe  fruitful  of  good  for  all,  both  white 
and  black,  to  the  good  order  of  society,  to  your  com¬ 
fort  and  well-being,  and  to  the  honor  and  welfare  of 
North  Carolina.  You  will  deserve  and  will  receive  the 
thanks  of  all  men;  you  will  purify  and  elevate  your 
people,  and  enjoy  the  confidence  and  love  of  your 
country. 


L*'"'.  m+w. 


'  Microfilmed 
SOUNET/ASERL  PROJECT 


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